I suspect you've been given some very incomplete information, crazy8.
Do you not at least have cell phone service in your rural area? The "dongle" of which your friend speaks is likely a wireless broadband usb modem to connect to service through a cell phone company internet service provider. And it is
not free.
It is very, very expensive. But Radio Shack will be happy to sell you such service on behalf of a cell phone company, if you are willing to fork over the money for it.
Radio Shack sells, for example,
this wireless dongle for use with the Verizon network. But the dongle costs $100, and you must pay each month in advance for the data you will use that month (it's a pay-as-you-go plan). Also, the dongle you purchase uses a technology called EVDO on the Verizon wireless network. EVDO is remarkably slow, little better than an old-fashioned dial-up telephone connection. And you are capped at 250 MB data total up/down for $40/month (which is nothing) or $60/month for 5 GB data up/down, which is still not very much. That is probably more than you would pay for a typically much faster wired connection without any data caps at all. Exceed those data caps, and you can get raped on the per-MB charge beyond the cap.
If your area has, in fact, truly received a government grant for broadband internet service, that is very likely a grant to promote the laying of
wired service to your area, which requires
no dongle. Almost every computer sold in the last 10 years has an RJ-45 ethernet port, for connecting to a wired network. And, while generally less expensive than wireless service, the wired service won't necessarily be cheap. The grant money is given to a private ISP company to pay for the company to lay the lines to your rural neighbourhood (which they probably wouldn't do without the government incentive). But the ISP then charges you the same rate they charge all their other customers for service. It is neither free nor cheap.
